The Hard Drive - Microsoft's Decision

Well it only took me 4 posts to get to an actual video game related topic.

Everyone knows by now that Microsoft will be selling a console with and without a hard drive and that this has made gamers around the world hopping mad. The consensus among gamers on forums is that Microsoft took the hard drive away from the XBox 360. While I don't disagree, we should consider a few important points on Microsoft's side of the ledger :

• Microsoft never made a dime on the XBox. They lost countless millions, and the loss keeps growing with every single console they sell today. Yes, it's great that Microsoft is finally giving up some of that stockpile of gold they accumulated while forcing Windows into every PC in the universe, but in the long run, losing money is not a proven business methodology.
• The reason they lost so much money is - suprise! - the hard drive. Gamers everywhere seems to think this hard drive that is being packaged with the XBox360 is a dimestore laptop model, and I'm pretty sure that's not the case. If you go to Seagate's website, I think you'll see that they have developed an entirely new hard drive called the LD25. While this is a 2.5" hard drive, I don't think it conforms to the laptop standard. And, because it's new and custom built, it costs more.
• Microsoft seems to be working really hard to reach out to developers. I believe that this is why we have to trust them when they say that they polled all the developers which is how they came to the conclusion that the 512MB of RAM they put on the mainboard was more important than the inclusion of a hard drive. Also, on one of the podcasts I listen to, they mentioned that MS probably has API's written for the developers to handle the whole hard drive (or lack thereof) issue.
  

Regardless of how you look at it, I think it would be foolish for us to think that Microsoft has not dissected every single issue of not including a hard drive in some versions of their console. If you really think about it, the games that really need a hard drive - Oblivion, Final Fantasy XI - those games are really not "casual gamer" type games.

And as far as Mom buying the wrong console type for Christmas? Well, let's just say I have a soft spot for any scenario where Timmy gets the short end of the stick. 90% of the kids that I have met on XBox Live - the ones who cannot buy the console themselves because they are too young to have jobs - are snotty nosed bratty little kids.

In conclusion, I think the XBox360 will be a smashing success come holiday. In a couple years from now we will look back at this issue and just laugh at how worked up everyone was about it.